Wonder how long it'll take people before they realize things like this are completely unpreventable. Blame all the people you want, have all the hindsight in the world, it will not stop this from happening. Unless of course we go with the whole throw out civil liberties angle and just start rounding up everyone we think might go nuts. Which would be everyone.

It's rather frustrating that none of the reporting on this seems to think it's relevant to state exactly what Colorado law says about exceptions to confidentiality and duty to protect. From C.R.S § 13-21-117:

A physician, social worker, psychiatric nurse, psychologist, or other mental health professional and a mental health hospital, community mental health center or clinic, institution, or their staff shall not be liable for damages in any civil action for failure to warn or protect any person against a mental health patient's violent behavior, and any such person shall not be held civilly liable for failure to predict such violent behavior, except where the patient has communicated to the mental health care provider a serious threat of imminent physical violence against a specific person or persons. When there is a duty to warn and protect under the circumstances specified above, the duty shall be discharged by the mental health care provider making reasonable and timely efforts to notify any person or persons specifically threatened, as well as notifying an appropriate law enforcement agency or by taking other appropriate action including, but not limited to, hospitalizing the patient..

So, duty to protect kicks in when there's a 1) serious threat of 2) imminent harm to 3) a specific identifiable person or group of people. The Colorado case Fredericks v. Jonsson, 609 F.3d 1096 (10th Cir. 2010) interprets this to mean that "the mental health provider has a duty to warn only when the patient himself predicts his violent behavior (by communicating-that is, expressing-his threat to the mental health provider)." In other words "my client's a possibly dangerous whackjob and I think he might hurt people" isn't enough.

We don't know exactly what the psychiatrist knew, so we can't know whether her concerns rose to that level. Yes, she warned the university's threat team (it would be interesting to know whether that team is structured in such a way that no potential breaches of confidentiality occur at that step - for example, if the members of the team are other mental health professionals who would already have access to charts under the terms of agreements signed by clients when they begin counselling) But that doesn't mean she had enough for duty to protect to kick in. Possibly the psychiatrist and/or university dropped the ball, but it's also possible that they reviewed what they knew in light of the law and concluded that this wasn't one of the narrow circumstances where confidentiality could or must be breached.

In hindsight it's easy to say she should have warned people. But the flip side is that if psychiatrists are too quick to report people who talk about less clear threats - general fantasies of violence without a specific plan, for example - it can deter people with such fantasies from talking about them with a professional and getting the help they need before they get to the point where they make concrete decisions to put plans in place.

A psychiatrist once told me that statistically 50% of the population has a diagnosable mental disorder whether they seek treatment for it or not. That seems a little high to me, but if I think about everyone I know who takes Paxil or the like just to make it through their crappy day at a job they can't afford to leave... well... it does seem like a lot of people have trouble. Do we count people who take Xanax to fly? Being afraid to fly but not to drive is irrational, after all.

TLDR: How would we determine who is too mentally ill to own a gun? If they have ever spent time in a psych ward? Been Baker Acted? Just been diagnosed with an irrational fear of spiders...?

Well, that lawsuit against the university suddenly doesn't seem so frivolous. On the other hand, where do you draw the line? What would be the standard protocol if one of your students had violent thoughts? Have him see a psychiatrist. Well, he was already doing that. Given that he had not actually acted on any of those thoughts, what else could the university do? Involuntarily commit him for thoughts of violence? Every now and then someone had done something to cause me to visualize them dying a slow and agonizing death. Should I be involuntarily commited? Is the university responsible for the actions of students that are commited off campus? If a UCLA student murders a hooker in Vegas, can the relatives of the deceased sue UCLA for not doing something about it? What about ex-students? Why didn't Harvard catch the fact Ted Kaczynski was insane?

Outside of having them see a mental health professional, which apparently was done for Holmes, and Cho before him, I really don't see what more the scools could have done given these guys never had acted on those violent thoughts.

I worked at a college counseling center for awhile and I'm surprised they didn't have a plan in place for this sort of thing. Usually the standard procedure is if a client threatens someone else, if there are clear intended victim/victims, and the client has means to carry it out then a threat assessment should have been triggered. Usually using university or local cops they kid would get hauled in for a threat assessment usually involving 2 mental health professionals. If he is deemed to be a threat they can then put him in an inpatient facility. This kind of thing happens on campuses more than you realize and most of the time it's nothing. There was a real push after Virginia Tech and the Gabby Giffords shooting to have clear protocols in place. If they dropped the ball on this one and didn't at least do an assessment, they better brace for the impending lawsuits.

That sucks but what can they really do?? I mean its kind of like that asshole that shot the lobster salesman. Cops were called on him before and they couldn't just arrest him for being a lunatic asshole. Just told kids to stay away from his lawn.

I'm not saying I agree with the inaction but really what is the protocol here short of possibly baker acting this kid?

Someone without shame needs to dress as Captain Hindsight for the backgrounds in CNN's coverage. Give them something worthwhile on the screen. Like a Where's Waldo while non-interesting trivia is repeated.

Aunt Crabby:relcec: Aunt Crabby: It's bad policy to punish universities for trying to provide resources and help keep campuses safe simply because they may chose to focus on cases involving people who will be staying at the university.

it's moronic policy to suggest that their duty to warn the greater community is discharged as long as the threat is no longer enrolled in the program. you are creating really stupid incentives at that point.What makes you think the university had a duty to warn in this case? If anyone had a duty to protect (which is a bit more than warn) it was the therapist. The university does not have a generally duty to assess all students for potential threats to the world at large, even if they set up a support committee that may gather information and make referrals to campus programs. Some vague "report" of a student to such a committee does not trigger a duty to investigate, assess, warn or protect. If you set a precedent that offing services to the university community makes the university responsible for all student conduct everywhere for all time, then universities will simply stop such services.

a little something called respondeat superior.the university is vicariously liable for the torts of its employees committed during the ordinary scope of employment and so if the likely victims were reasonably identifiable then the torts of the therapist will be imputed to the university as long as the therapist cannot be said to have been an independent contractor (which appears doubtful).

bluefelix:Aunt Crabby: angrycrank: In hindsight it's easy to say she should have warned people. But the flip side is that if psychiatrists are too quick to report people who talk about less clear threats - general fantasies of violence without a specific plan, for example - it can deter people with such fantasies from talking about them with a professional and getting the help they need before they get to the point where they make concrete decisions to put plans in place.

This is true. However, I don't see how she could break confidentiality to tell the university if she didn't meet the standard you explained (thank you for that). Honestly, I am not out for her blood, but if anyone had a duty it was her, and not the university.

I'm not sure that the therapist or the university believed that the student met the legal standard of harm to others, and as I read the information you posted about the university's BETA team, I don't think they would have necessarily found a threat either. It depends on information we don't have. The info in your post about the BETA program reads, "...confronted with individuals who may be threatening, disruptive, or otherwise problematic." That's really broad. "Problematic" or "disruptive situations" could mean anything, really. For instance, maybe he was distraught over his inability to perform the work in the PhD program. What direction would his life go in if he couldn't hack it? Maybe the therapist wanted a little backup to help her guide him out of a tough spot. We simply don't know what he said. Maybe it was threatening, maybe it wasn't. But it doesn't seem that the BETA team is simply a group of professionals that weigh whether or not to go to the police. It sounds like they can be called for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with legal concerns.

I'm sure we'll learn a lot more about the nature of the therapist's concerns when it goes to trial.

EXACTLY. The standards for reporting to the BETA team appear to be far less narrow than those that apply to duty to protect. And it's not clear at all what specifically she said and to whom, plus there's a good chance that the agreements signed by students who are users of the counselling service allow for limited disclosure to the BETA team under very specific circumstances. She may not have said anything to them that would constitute a breach of confidentiality. But all this is speculation - I'd wait to find out more details before we either string up OR exonerate the psychiatrist or the university.

Aunt Crabby:angrycrank: In hindsight it's easy to say she should have warned people. But the flip side is that if psychiatrists are too quick to report people who talk about less clear threats - general fantasies of violence without a specific plan, for example - it can deter people with such fantasies from talking about them with a professional and getting the help they need before they get to the point where they make concrete decisions to put plans in place.

This is true. However, I don't see how she could break confidentiality to tell the university if she didn't meet the standard you explained (thank you for that). Honestly, I am not out for her blood, but if anyone had a duty it was her, and not the university.

I'm not sure that the therapist or the university believed that the student met the legal standard of harm to others, and as I read the information you posted about the university's BETA team, I don't think they would have necessarily found a threat either. It depends on information we don't have. The info in your post about the BETA program reads, "...confronted with individuals who may be threatening, disruptive, or otherwise problematic." That's really broad. "Problematic" or "disruptive situations" could mean anything, really. For instance, maybe he was distraught over his inability to perform the work in the PhD program. What direction would his life go in if he couldn't hack it? Maybe the therapist wanted a little backup to help her guide him out of a tough spot. We simply don't know what he said. Maybe it was threatening, maybe it wasn't. But it doesn't seem that the BETA team is simply a group of professionals that weigh whether or not to go to the police. It sounds like they can be called for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with legal concerns.

I'm sure we'll learn a lot more about the nature of the therapist's concerns when it goes to trial.

Aunt Crabby:BarkingUnicorn: Aunt Crabby: Can someone explain how the university became the middle man here?

By establishing a threat-assessment procedure and then deliberately deciding not to use it.

How is the university threat assessment process on campus extended to the duty to police all of their students in every situation? I haven't read their policies, but I would guess the threat assessment is limited to threats to the university and not the public at large. Protecting the word in general is beyond the scope of their authority. Since there was no illegal act on campus there was nothing for the university to report. It is the therapist who had a legal duty to protect, so she should have told the police and not just the university. I think the duty still lies with the therapist unless threat assessment was part of a clinical service.

The school has a duty to do what it says it's going to do: assemble the threat-assessment team and assess the threat.

Colorado law required Fenton to report to law enforcement "a serious threat of imminent physical violence against a specific third party." I assume whatever "alarmed" Fenton did not meet that standard.

cassanovascotian:I am utterly astounded by the kind of dialogue that is surrounding this incident.

1) The university is the problem, blame them2) Costumes are the problem -don't let anyone wear costumes in movie theatres3) Society is the problem... or something

And everyone is so cowed by the NRA lobby that it's completely unthinkable to suggest that maybe the second amendment is a farking retarded piece of outdated legislation that needs to be done away with, and that maybe it's not such a good idea for demonstrably mentally ill people with homicidal ideation to have a right to carry AR-15's.

but don't mind me... please, go back to talking about how costumes are the real problem.

Think there's gonna be some serious guilt going on.One of the hardest things to deal with is "If I'd only _____________" syndrome.Also known as 'kicking oneself after the fact' and "Hindsight, how does it work?".

Especially if the thing that you could have done was right in front of your face and you chose not to.

Happy Hours:DoBeDoBeDo: You do realize that in most states the mentally ill ARE barred from purchasing or owning firearms right?

Are the legal and medical definitions of "mentally ill" the same?

How long does the gun ban last? If someone suffered from it as a child and seems fine as an adult, do they not get to have a gun?

What about depression? A substance abuse problem?

And is the opinion of one psychiatrist enough too enter them into a no-gun-database? Or is simply seeking counseling enough to put them in there in the first place?

I don't know about gun databases, but getting diagnosed with a mental illness used to be enough to exclude you from being able to get health insurance. That has all changed with the Affordable Care Act, but if say you were a teenager who had a one time psychotic break due to a life event (being gang raped for example), but you were wrongly diagnosed with schizophrenia (or purposely wrongly diagnosed so the psych hospital can get more insurance money), you could be denied coverage by private insurers for the rest of your life. Parents who run little Johnny into his pediatrician to get some "mood enhancers" never really take that into consideration.

drjekel_mrhyde:Can your psychiatrist really do this? Doesn't it goes against their oath?

If you make threats against a specific person, then the psychiatrist is legally obligated under the Tarasoff precedent to inform the authorities. If the person behaves in a way, or makes statements that lead the doctor to believe the patient poses a credible danger to himself or others, then you can involuntarily commit the patient for observation, usually for something like 48hrs, during which time 2 other doctors will evaluate her and then determine whether or not the patient's current mental state merits prolonged stay.

OnlyM3:It's not "hindsight" when you are told of the event before it occurs.

So you know with complete certainty that he told her "I'm going to go into this theater on this date and shoot the place up"?

And let's say that he really did tell her that and the cops show up and the guys says, "yeah, I told her that. I was just trying to yank her chain to see what her reaction would be." Then what? Let's say they decide they better take the careful approach and go search this guy's place. They find a bunch of legal weapons. Then what?

GoldSpider:In the wake of these kinds of events, there always seems to have been warnings that could and should have been acted upon.

Meh. There's at least dozens, probably hundreds, and maybe thousands of people that could snap at any moment in every state in the union on any given day. I suppose you plan on drastically increasing community and county mental health care budgets and facilities? You can bring the whole goddam family to beg and plead for an in-patient spot and get denied because they have no beds. So it's all well and good to think we can just be more vigilant and keep this from happening again but it's a pipe dream.

farking hell, if someone's so messed up that their psychiatrist feels the need to report them to authorities, it's time to pay attention.

Threats of violence against others are exactly like suicide threats -- if you tell someone and they stop you, everyone assumes you were only doing it for the attention and writes the report off as an overreaction[1]. If you tell someone and they don't stop you, somebody ends up dead.

This is why such threats should always be taken seriously[2]: because if they are serious, you save one or more lives. If they're not serious, you make so much trouble for them that they'll think very, very hard before they do that again. (And if there's enough news coverage, maybe so will the next ten drama queens.)

When I heard this guy was studying neuroscience, my first thought was that he'd known for a long time that something was wrong with him, and he was trying to figure it out. He was seeing a psychiatrist. He told his doctor about his violent fantasies before he acted on them. He knew what he was capable of, and he wanted someone to stop him. (This does not in any way excuse his actions, but those of you who think he should have just stopped himself don't understand the first thing about mental illness and should STFU.)

The authorities were the weak link here. I'm not saying they were responsible for what happened; this kind of tragedy is rarely anyone's "fault", and assigning blame solves nothing. I am saying that they were negligent in not taking the report seriously. I'm not a fan of America's lawsuit-happy culture, and no amount of money can bring back a lost loved one, but if I were facing six- or seven-figure medical bills because of an attack like this, you bet your ass I'd be suing for damages. If lawsuits are what it takes to make law enforcement agencies take this kind of thing seriously, so be it.

[1] Which really farking sucks, by the way. If you're feeling suicidal, do not, under any circumstances, call the friend who made you promise to call them if you felt that way. You will probably lose that friend and end up worse off than you were before. Call a crisis hotline, or your therapist, or 911. Call your friend from the hospital, or not at all. Trust me on this, I learned it the hard way. No matter how much trouble it makes for you, it's better than losing your best friend when you're least equipped to cope with it, and carrying the pain of that incalculable loss with you for the rest of your life isn't going to make things any easier.

[2] By "taking threats seriously" I do not mean putting up with whiny BS or letting people drag you into their personal drama. I mean reporting it to the authorities immediately, exactly the way this guy's psychiatrist did.

MycroftHolmes:way south: HotWingConspiracy: Yeah they should have told the cops!....who would have said he hasn't done anything wrong and all of his weapons were legally purchased.

Its illegal to buy pr keep a firearm if you're entirely off your rocker. If the Doc suspected he was a threat, she probably should have notified the authorities of the homicidal maniac in their midst.

She knew he needed to be flagged in the system.

OK, so he should be convicted and his rights restricted based on a judgement call? You do understand that psychiatry is far from an exact science. Are you really advocating that we 'flag' someone and restrict their rights based on the decisions of entirely fallible human beings?

I bet the same people who whine that he should have been flagged and charged with futurecrime are the same people who whine about police acting overzealously and without justification

Flagging someone and restricting their rights based on a judgement call is pretty much how it works in the mental health field. Sure there are standard threat assessments, but it ultimately comes down to the judgement of the clinician. Luckily, most mental health professionals are careful about who they involuntarily commit, it's not an easy decision to take someone's freedom away even if it's for a 24 stay in a psych hospital for more evaluation. Which is why, they let someone go who ends up doing bad things more often than they put an entirely harmless person in a hospital. You never hear stories of, I was entirely sane and lucid but they held me against my will for a week in a hospital.

Also on college campuses, potential problem students get flagged all the time. Where I worked there is an entire committee that deals with problem students. If they are showing up on one radar on campus, it usually means they're causing problems all over the place. Usually oversight committees are there to determine how to best handle/accommodate these students whether that is mandating they get professional help or kicking them out of the university.

By the psychiatrist's own assessment to not call law enforcement themselves, the university had no additional burden of duty to do so. By telling the university, but NOT law enforcement, the psychiatrist was in fact signalling that in her opinion, the risk was not critically serious and did not warrant police intervention.

Scapegoating the university is a dumbfark move, though I suppose in a suit you might be able to squeeze them for some cash if they settle or have an incompetent lawyer. They could try and sue the psychiatrist, for.. incompetence? Malpractice? But good luck.

All of it is wharrrgarbling and wanting to blame someone other than Sideshow Bob, or just get cash.

way south:HotWingConspiracy: Yeah they should have told the cops!....who would have said he hasn't done anything wrong and all of his weapons were legally purchased.

Its illegal to buy pr keep a firearm if you're entirely off your rocker. If the Doc suspected he was a threat, she probably should have notified the authorities of the homicidal maniac in their midst.

She knew he needed to be flagged in the system.

OK, so he should be convicted and his rights restricted based on a judgement call? You do understand that psychiatry is far from an exact science. Are you really advocating that we 'flag' someone and restrict their rights based on the decisions of entirely fallible human beings?

I bet the same people who whine that he should have been flagged and charged with futurecrime are the same people who whine about police acting overzealously and without justification

In all seriousness, it must be said that the formatting of this article is appalling...

HeadlineVideoNBC adVideo captionBylineFive paragraphs of the article, wrapped around an ad on the rightVideoNBC adVideo captionTwo paragraphs of the articleLink to a pollSlideshowOne paragraph of the article, wrapped around a link to NBC's Facebook page on the leftThe rest of the article, with a link to a related article, and wrapped around an ad on the right

cassanovascotian:I am utterly astounded by the kind of dialogue that is surrounding this incident.

1) The university is the problem, blame them2) Costumes are the problem -don't let anyone wear costumes in movie theatres3) Society is the problem... or something

And everyone is so cowed by the NRA lobby that it's completely unthinkable to suggest that maybe the second amendment is a farking retarded piece of outdated legislation that needs to be done away with, and that maybe it's not such a good idea for demonstrably mentally ill people with homicidal ideation to have a right to carry AR-15's.

but don't mind me... please, go back to talking about how costumes are the real problem.

The 2nd amendment may be outdated. Kentucky might be horribly misguided on their gun laws. But that's what the future is going to look like; technology isn't going to give society any choice. With the increasing affordability and capability of rapid prototyping machines (which may eventually become ubiquitious) the ability of the state to control firearms will end. Someone has already printed out the lower reciever of a firearm and successfully fired it. They reported that there was virtually no wear and tear on the printed part after ~150 rounds. 3D printers turn firearms into data, no machine shop necessary.

Moreover, given that he apparently made servicable incendiary devices, the fact that he chose firearms, and wasn't particularly proficient in their use may well have saved many lives. Outside of catching him early and institutionalizing him, this may well have been the next best available outcome. Something which, I suspect, is worth keeping in mind as some of us prepare for a battle the RIAA, MPAA, porn producers, video game publishers, and others are already spending billions to fight to a draw.

They weren't wrong, really. Their job is to protect the university community, not the world at large. Who could they have told that would have done something? If they told the police, not much the police would likely have done.

In Russia you can't get a driver's license if you had mental issues. Here you can get a firearm without a psych eval. Banning "assault weapons" is stupid. Doing more than a cursory background check is not.

drjekel_mrhyde:Can your psychiatrist really do this? Doesn't it goes against their oath?

My understanding is that mental health professionals are not sworn to a legally protected oath like lawyers. If a patient is abusing someone or is threatening to hurt someone the psychiatrist/psychologist is legally required to notify the authorities. It's a felony to not inform. My guess is that the shooter didn't make solid threats in his sessions.

I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the psychologist involved. She was probably concerned, but there wasn't enough evidence to put legal action into motion. Remember, people can be sued for these things. Maybe the shooter just said something like, "Sometimes I think it would be great if other people suffered like me" or something really vague like that. Nothing that would rise to the level of worst mass shooting in U.S. history. As a few people have already said, hindsight is 20/20, right?

draypresct:steklo: Well, that explains a lot. I would hate to be those people who made that decision. Several lives could've been spared or not injured.

I wonder how they sleep at night?

Also wonder if they can be sued...

As someone who has made that decision, it's not an easy one to make. Taking someone's freedom away by having the cops take them to a psychiatric hospital or letting them go with the possibility they pulled the wool over your eyes and end up hurting someone is often a judgement call of epic proportions. Most of the time you don't sleep at night no matter which way you go with it. And yes they can be sued but more likely the college will be sued. The mental health professional can also be dragged in front of their licensing board to have their career basically ended.

steklo:Well, that explains a lot. I would hate to be those people who made that decision. Several lives could've been spared or not injured.

I wonder how they sleep at night?

Also wonder if they can be sued...

One of our local universities had a psych prof who shot and killed a student and then himself. It turns out the the Uni had lots of warnings about this guy, even before they hired him. I don't remember the exact diagnosis, but I think it included the term "crazier than a shiat-house rat".

The university has reached a settlement with the family of the slain student.

We need to just divide the country in half. This half is "the government," and the other half are "the citizens." "The government" half is above the law. A person from "the government" is paired off with a "citizen." The government person watches the citizen 24/7.

Then things like that shooting could never, ever happen.... if a person from "the government" shoots a place up, they are above the law and it isn't newsworthy.